


misplaced not gone

by blank_ghost



Series: S=K log W [6]
Category: Captain America (2011), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Character Death, Loki ignores all time travel laws, Loki meets Howard, M/M, angst fest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-24
Updated: 2012-09-24
Packaged: 2017-11-14 22:23:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blank_ghost/pseuds/blank_ghost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Turning on his stool he reaches out and offers his hand to the mortal. “Loki of Asgard.” <br/>“Howard of Stark.” The man offers, shaking hands…</p>
            </blockquote>





	misplaced not gone

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr at www . blank-ghost . tumblr . com
> 
> my ask box is open to fic questions and story ideas!

  
  
  
    He’d been here before. Not this run down bar in the Bronx of New York somewhere in the middle of the nineteen forties, but the darkness. The out of option feeling; being so… lost. The warm blanket of solitude, having run away from everything. It’s all blaringly familiar to so many years ago when he’d cast himself into the abyss of space.   
  
    He’s here again. Alone in a world he has no care for.   
  
    A world away from Anthony.   
  
    “Another dove?” The woman behind the counter asks, as she’s already well into filling the glass in front of him with an amber port. Tony’s drink. Scotch. The liquid swirls like the cosmos as he examines the dredges with an empty heart.   
  
    No.   
  
    Not empty, full. Too full. Crammed to overflowing with memories of laughs and smiles and love.   
  
    A warm body sits next to him on a barstool, knocking elbows with a gruff muttered apology in a too familiar voice. Tony haunting him even here in a time and place the mortal man has never graced. His life spilling over and corrupting everything Loki sees and touches.   
  
    “Sorry.”   
  
    “No. Don’t be.” Loki breathes out, lifting his head from his examination only to be lost in mahogany eyes. His heart clenching in his chest and bleeding out over his soul. The man next to him isn’t Tony, the differences are vast, the voice just a little scotch broken and close. The hair scruffy and dark.   
  
    It’s the eyes, the intelligent eyes that shine out even though a drunken haze and spark with the knowledge of the universe. Deep brown and pain filled, mirroring Loki’s own.   
  
    He can’t help but want to know what has stolen the shine from those familiar eyes and has to remind himself that this is not his mortal. He’s not here to soothe this man’s wounds, but to hide away from life and lick his own.  
  
    Returning his attention to his glass he spends more time spinning the tumbler along the scratched and nicked wood before drinking from it. The liquid burns and tastes of winter kisses and shared gasps of pleasure.   
  
    “Who’d you loose?” That same-but-not voice asks as he grasps his own glass of amber scotch and downs it with a single swallow.   
  
    For all the graces of his sliver tongue he fumbles with words as he takes in the vision next to him. “Wh… What?”  
  
    “In the war? It’s over. Only us who’ve lost are still here drinking.” The mortal says with wisdom and a fake smile.  
  
    “I lost a dear friend. A lover.” His breaths out, admitting only because he could never lie to Tony, he can’t lie to this mocking image ether. Tony didn’t fall in the war of worlds two that the mortal is speaking of, but in a way he fell in a war. A war with his own body. A war with cells that had robed him of energy and his beautiful mind… his life.  
  
    The hum of acknowledgement isn’t mocking, even though in this time men loving each other are forbidden by most standards, he must be amongst like company.  
  
     His hands slide over the bar as his drink is filled again, closing his eyes tight and trying not to remember the times Tony had stood up to a crowed of rowdy people and flipped them all off for mocking his sexuality. Stood up for Loki and their love.  
  
    In the wake of his pain he looks to the mirage of a man next to him. This mockery of Anthony in his youth. “You?”  
  
    Slim shoulders rise and fall as pain dark eyes look down to his drink. “Same.”  
  
    “We are alike than.” Loki breaths out, downing his glass and letting the scotch burn away memories for a haunting moment.   
  
    Turning on his stool he reaches out and offers his hand to the mortal. “Loki of Asgard.”   
  
    “Howard of Stark.” The man offers, shaking hands and blinking confused as Loki turns two shades paler.   
  
    “Stark.”   
  
    “The inventor. Yeah.” Inventor. Father.   
  
    Fuck.  
  
    “You’re… Anthony’s… he… Spoke much of you.” He breaths out. His hand still holding tight to the mortals even as he blushes and dark eyes look back to his drink on the bar.   
  
    “I’m honored then.” Howard tries hard, obviously clueless to how much Tony had spoken of punching his father in the face. Freeing his hand and rubbing it on his pant leg.  
  
    Many people already speak of the Starks already, one more isn‘t going to change the world but Howard is kind enough to respect Loki‘s memories.   
  
    “Steve, spoke none of you.”   
  
    Dear god. The humor is the same and it takes him having to turn and drink from his scotch to stop his need to pull the senior Stark into his arms and sob.   
  
    “Steve, would have if he knew me.” Loki replies back after his throat is done choking him and his heart is calmed enough to hear the bar around them.   
  
    “Roger’s would have never seen me here. He’d… He’d want me out in the world, living. I bet your Anthony is the same.”   
  
     “Much so. No one was more full of life than Tony.” He knows his voice sounds broken but he cares too little and hurts too much to pull the pieces back together again.   
  
    Loki swears under his breath something that almost sounds like fucking Steve Rogers. Looking down to the twin vibranium bands on his finger. His and Anthony’s both, in a round about way a gift from the captain, it was his shield the rare metal was liberated from.  
  
    “To your love and my captain.” Howard states after a hauntingly quiet moment, raising his glass to the air. His offered smile is fragile but warm from scotch and sorrow.   
  
    “To Anthony and Steve.” Loki agrees, taking the toast that’s not unlike those to fallen warriors on Asgard. The glasses chiming like bells to Valhalla, scotch sloshing before they drink it down.   
  
    “Anthony. That’s a good name.” Howard states, licking his lips clean of the drink and shaking off the bartenders offer for a refill.   
  
    “It is. He was a good man. Powerful and just and wise.” Loki whispers, stroking his hand though his hair and sweeping the black locks back from his face. “Everything all other humans are not.”  
   
    “He sounds- I’m sorry.” Senior Stark says under his breath. “Steve was much the same. The best of the best. It seems this war has done nothing but take from us those we need most.”   
  
    Loki can’t help but understand the man's loss and sorrow, only Howard’s love was not stolen, only lost… lost to be found again in a different time.  
  
    Loki’s lips twist as he nods his head, rising to his feet and towering over yet another drunken Stark. Mahogany eyes fallow him up and watch, always watching. So much father like son.   
  
    “No. Time has simply misplaced them.” He says, leaning down and capturing scotch flavored lips with his one last time. More willing than one would have thought. So close to being the same, the taste, the feel. Dominant and demanding and needy. Hands rising to grip his jacket not push him away.   
  
    “You have reminded me, that things are not gone, simply lost.” He whispers against kiss swollen lips.  Drawing his magic around himself with a renewed hope.   
  
    “Howard. Seek your love in the ice, not the ocean.” He states, letting his armor and leather clothing show though the glamour spell.   
  
    “How do… how… what?” Howard sputters, standing fast to his feet. His barstool crashing back and rattling the ghost ridden men from their sleepy stupors. Brown eyes bright with unbridled hope and shock.  
  
    Bowing with flourish he grins bright to the senior Stark. “I have simply to search for mine in the right places too.”  
  
    Seeming to find his feet Howard offers his hand a final time. So adaptable. So much Tony. “Good luck then… Loki.”   
  
  

 

**Author's Note:**

> BIG thanks to my Beta Becky and my bacon bits; Tomas. you for keeping my work from being crap and you for being you! <3


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